


Coda

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: LAOFT Extras [116]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26510551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Everyone – including May – loves to joke she knows everything.(May knows all too well she doesn’t.)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & May (OFC), Background LAMP, May (OFC) & Jax (OMC)
Series: LAOFT Extras [116]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1365505
Comments: 33
Kudos: 363





	Coda

**Author's Note:**

> takes place a month after the main storyline. May (OFC)-centric,

May didn’t really know what she’d expected Virgil to be like.

She remembered – through the cloudy lens of the years and years since her daughter had locked her out of the clearing – the pale, ethereal face, but he had never been _Bruderspinne_ to her. Like an old photograph with tall tales attached to it. May didn’t know the boy in Momma and Oma’s stories, and for most of her life she hadn’t wanted to.

So when she’d seen him, Patton clutched against his chest, staring down what he probably didn’t even _know_ was the monster Oma had become, his purple eyes luminescent even as she was driving past him, her first thought had been _If I have to hit two monsters with this damn truck I WILL be havin’ a fit._

She hadn’t. Instead she’d been forced to tell him right there, and watch his face crumple like a stomped pop can, and thought _oh._

Yeah – she couldn’t really blame Momma and Oma. Anybody’d be a sucker for that heartbroken face.

And now – the dust settled, the king dead, and Oma finally laid to rest for real – May occasionally had the Lord of the Forest in her living room, kissing her grandson. Who’d have thought?

 _That_ had been another thing she’d been a little surprised by. Oh, not the relationship – she wasn’t _blind_ , and Roman had been in love with Virgil for nearly half his life at this point. Patton and Logan weren’t any more subtle either.

Only…

Well, it had been a little _quick,_ hadn’t it?

May hadn’t quite expected Virgil to fall back quite so fast, but she supposed love at first sight wasn’t _that_ out of the ordinary, especially with the level of crazy their lives already had. But it wriggled around in the back of her head, a little whisper of intuition, _you’re missing something_ , and it had been living rent-free in May’s head since Virgil woke up a month ago.

And she didn’t even consider the idea that Virgil was swindling them somehow – good neighbor or no, no one could fake being quite that twitterpated.

On the sofa opposite of her, Roman and Virgil sat, cross-legged and facing each other with their hands clasped. Their foreheads were pressed together while Roman told a story May wasn’t quite listening to and Virgil stared at his face like a man that hadn’t seen the sun in years.

Hmm. Unfortunate phrasing – good thing she hadn’t said that out loud.

Roman trailed off, and May glanced up from her knitting to look at them.

Their eyes had drifted closed, and Virgil had let go of one of Roman’s to touch his face. May felt a mixture of fondness and exasperation that they seemed to have entirely forgotten she was sitting right there, but the fondness was definitely winning. Hard not to, when her baby was smiling so soft and relaxed, calmer than May had seen him in literal years.

Roman started humming aimlessly, and May returned to the sock in her lap. Eventually Roman seemed to find a tune he liked, an old song Abigail had played to death on her eight-track and then her cd player. May suspected Roman didn’t even remember learning it, because he’d known all the words from the moment he’d moved in here.

And then Virgil started humming along, which May didn’t register for several moments, and then made her freeze.

“What’s it called?” said Virgil, quiet in the middle of a pause in the melody.

“Landslide,” said Roman, “I have it on CD,”

“Seedy?”

“Letters, not a word,” said Roman, amused, “Don’t remember what it stands for,”

“You’re mother sang that song constantly,” said Virgil, “I think it was the first one of hers that I memorized,”

May felt like someone had abruptly jerked the rug from underneath her. The room seemed at once oppressively quiet and thunderously loud as Roman and Virgil kept talking and May listened with a poisonous flood of dread rising in her throat.

“Yeah,” said Roman quietly, “That’s where I got the CDs. They were hers,”

“That and the one that goes: _here comes the sun-”_

“ _Doo-do doo-do,_ ” Roman joined in, giggling a little.

Virgil laughed too, and May almost couldn’t hear it over the ringing in her ears.

“That one was my favorite,” said Virgil, “At least until you came. Hopeful. It was nice,”

“Mamaw?” said Roman suddenly.

May’s head snapped to look at him, his eyebrows drawn in worry, which was how May noticed she’d stood from her chair and moved halfway to the kitchen without even registering it.

“Yeah, baby?” she said, shocked her voice came out as level as it did.

“… Where are you going?” said Roman warily.

“Back porch,” she said, “Jax is on his way back – you know how I like my gossip,”

And that seemed to placate him. Virgil was still watching her, and May could feel the stare but didn’t, _couldn’t_ look back at him, sure she was gonna unravel completely any second now if she didn’t get away from Virgil as soon as possible.

He didn’t stop her – May shuffled out of the room and through the kitchen and pushed open the back door, pausing only a moment to curse that she’d forgotten her cane and would have to cross the grass without it, but she didn’t dare go back in the house.

Slowly, she made it to the bench swing, and Jax was already perched on top. He always came when she needed him.

He swooped down onto the ground and hopped back over to the swing, and then up on the bench beside her. He watched with his solemn, beady brown eyes and May swallowed the bile in her throat to speak.

“He was awake,”

Jax stayed silent for a long moment, and May wondered if she was imagining the way her heart felt like it would give out.

“… You didn’t know,” Jax replied.

“Oh, _who gives a shit,”_ May snarled, “Ya think it matters I _didn’t know?_ Ya think it mattered to _him_ all alone in that damn coffin for decades?”

“May,” said Jax softly.

“Oh, don’t you dare _May_ me, you idiot pigeon,” she said, mortified at her voice wobbling like a little girl’s and the sting of tears in her eyes, “Don’t you act like I need _sympathy_ for this-”

“Mayflower,” said Jax weakly, “You gotta forgive yourself someday,”

“No,” said May petulantly, “I damn well do _not,_ ”

Jax sighed, leaning over to preen her hair.

“Stubborn witch,” he muttered.

May leaned over a little to let him reach more of her head – because it made Jax feel better and no other reason, _thank you very much_ – and they stayed like that, silent, for a long minute.

“He’s just a kid, Jaybird,” she choked, “Am I ever gonna stop hurtin’ every damn kid the world puts in front of me?”

“You were a kid too, you know,” said Jax, “Sixteen is pocket change to you, you crone,”

“Wasn’t a kid for Abigail and Dorothy. Certainly not for Roman, or Logan,”

“They all love you,” said Jax, “Even Dot,”

“Might be better if they didn’t,” she replied, bitter and quiet, “All I ever did was make a mess of everythin’ and yet here I am, never payin’ for any of it,”

“ _May,”_ said Jax desperately, “You’ve been stewing in enough guilt to kill a lesser woman for almost ten years. You’ve paid. You’ve paid more than once over – you need to let it go,”

“I _can’t_ ,” she snapped.

Jax made a rattling, unhappy noise in the back of his throat.

“I can’t,” she repeated, voice small, “I don’t deserve to be this happy, Jaybird. I gotta make up for it somehow,”

“That’s not how it works,”

“Says you,”

Jax sighed again, ruffling his feathers in frustration.

“I got all your emotional competency, I swear,”

“I’m sure ya did,” said May, running her fingers through some of his feathers until they laid flat again, “And I got all the reckless,”

“The stubborn, too,”

“Don’t forget the pretty,”

“Oh, you-”

Jax flapped, whacking her with one wing in playful irritation.

“Witches,” said Jax, rolling his eyes, “You exhaust me,”

May laughed, and for just a moment the weight in her heart lifted, making her feel light and young and not quite so burdened.

But it settled over her shoulders again, smile slipping away – and Jax knew, because he knew all May’s secrets and all her tells, and tapped sharp but just shy of piercing to the top of her head.

“I bet yer good and tired of this argument,” she said.

“No,” said Jax, “Never. Not til I win,”

May chuckled.

“So sure?”

“I am,” said Jax solemnly, “I’m the emotionally competent half, I just said that. I’m only waiting for you to catch up,”

“Been waitin’ a long time, Jax,”

“I’m patient,” he said, “And you are so very worth it, Mayflower. I will tell you every day till you believe me,”

May’s eyes abruptly flooded with tears again, and Jax croaked in sympathy and nibbled at her collar, soothing.

“May?”

She startled, looking up at the back door and thankful she hadn’t actually started crying yet.

Virgil was standing in the partially open door, awkward and uncertain, and May could see Roman peeking out curiously from behind his arm.

“Yeah, baby, what is it?” she said, willing her voice not to shake.

Virgil wavered, eyes flickering from May to Jax and back, and then a glance at Roman over his shoulder.

“… May we sit with you?” he said finally, his eyebrows a little pinched.

Smiling as best she could, May nodded, and both boys moved across the lawn, hands clasped between them.

Jax hopped up onto the back of the bench. Roman sat next to her, pulling his legs up beside him and burying his face in her arm with a small, content sigh, and Virgil folded in one smooth motion to sit on the ground in front of her, his back to her knees.

“You’re acting weird,” mumbled Roman, blunt as always.

“Like I ever act normal,” she dodged, “We’re witches, ain’t we? Nothin’ normal about us,”

Roman wrinkled his nose, glaring at her suspiciously, but he let it go, snuggling back into her shoulder.

“Love you big bunches,”

“Love you big bunches,” she replied around the fist in her throat.

A cool weight landed on her knee, and when May looked down she saw Virgil had laid his head to rest on it.

May placed a hand on his head, and Virgil gave a small sigh, tilting into it ever so slightly.

How lonely had he been, all that time? Her doing, and yet here he was.

May began to stroke his hair, turning to press her lips to the top of Roman’s head.

She couldn’t change the past, no matter how it ached – but she could do better now.

And right now, that would have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me on [tumblr](tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com) and [discord](https://discord.gg/FgF3gp2)


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